page_title: Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany
section_title: After World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany / After World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: Nationaal Archief Beschrijving: Kleuter viert de bevrijding met een sigaret. Datum:april 1945 Vervaardiger: Anefo / Poll, Willem van de Bestanddeelnummer:900-2530 URL: http://beeldbank.nationaalarchief.nl/na:col1:dat244357 Voor meer informatie over het Nationaal Archief: http://www.nationaalarchief.nl Voor meer foto's uit deze en andere collecties, bezoek onze Beeldbank:, http://www.beeldbank.nationaalarchief.nl U kunt ons helpen onze kennis van de fotocollecties te verrijken door tags en commentaren toe te voegen. Herkent u mensen of locaties of heeft u een bijzonder verhaal te vertellen bij één van de foto's, laat dan een reactie achter (als u ingelogd bent bij Flickr) of stuur een mailtje naar: flickrthecommons@nationaalarchief.nl
context_page_description: In the early 20th century, German researchers made advances in linking smoking to health harms, which strengthened the anti-tobacco movement in the Weimar Republic and led to a state-supported anti-smoking campaign. Early anti-tobacco movements grew in many nations from the middle of the 19th century. The 1933–1945 anti-tobacco campaigns in Nazi Germany have been widely publicized, although stronger laws than those passed in Germany were passed in some American states, the UK, and elsewhere between 1890 and 1930. After 1941, anti-tobacco campaigns were restricted by the Nazi government.
  The German movement was the most powerful anti-smoking movement in the world during the 1930s and early 1940s. However, tobacco control policy was incoherent and ineffective, with uncoordinated and often regional efforts by many actors. Obvious measures were not taken, and existing measures were not enforced. Some Nazi leaders condemned smoking and several of them openly criticized tobacco consumption, but others publicly smoked and denied that it was harmful.
  There was much research on smoking and its effects on health during Nazi rule, and it was the most important of its type at that time.
context_section_description: After the collapse of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II, illegal smuggling of tobacco became prevalent, and the anti-smoking campaign started by the Nazis ceased to exist after the fall of the Third Reich. In 1949, approximately 400 million cigarettes manufactured in the United States entered Germany illegally every month. In 1954, nearly two billion Swiss cigarettes were smuggled into Germany and Italy. As part of the Marshall Plan, the United States paid to send tobacco to Germany free of charge; the amount of tobacco shipped into Germany in 1948 was 24,000 tons and was as high as 69,000 tons in 1949. Post-war consumption in Germany remained initially low, due to poverty. Per capita yearly cigarette consumption in post-war Germany steadily rose from 460 in 1950 to 1,523 in 1963.
  Nazi-related rhetoric associating anti-smoking measures with fascism has been fairly widely used in nicotine marketing (except in Germany, where such comparisons have brought strong reactions). Historical research has been quoted in a selective manner, which has been criticized by the quoted historians. In the early 21st century, this Nazi rhetoric may be being supplanted by Taliban-related rhetoric associating anti-smoking measures with theocracy.
  It has been argued that the Nazi anti-tobacco campaigns delayed effective nicotine addiction reduction measures by decades. At the end of the 20th century, the anti-tobacco campaign in Germany was unable to approach the level of the Nazi-era climax in the years 1939–41, and German tobacco health research was described by Robert N. Proctor as "muted". Modern Germany has some of Europe's least restrictive tobacco control policies, and more Germans both smoke and die of it in consequence, which also leads to higher public health costs.
caption: At the end of WWII, a Dutch child celebrates liberation by smoking a cigarette
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